(This article is part of Today’s Cache, The Hindu’s newsletter on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, innovation and policy. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
ChatGPT to be integrated into iPhone
Apple and OpenAI have finalised their agreement to integrate the AI chatbot ChatGPT into the iPhone, a report stated. While the details of the deal are under wraps, it could potentially be worth billions of dollars to the AI firm if a success. The report also said that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was left concerned by how the agreement would impact his company’s partnership with OpenAI.
Apple, which is largely seen as lagging behind other Big Tech companies with regards to artificial intelligence, was in discussions with both OpenAI and Google but ended up picking the former in the end. The deal is a lucrative one for OpenAI which has been pushing its enterprise-focused side of operations to generate revenue. The report also claims that the firm could change its status to a for-profit organisation given the change it’s gone through since Microsoft backed it from a non-profit research lab to a money-making venture now. The announcement is expected to be made public at Apple’s developer summit, WWDC.
TikTok making U.S. copy of app algorithm
TikTok is reportedly working on the clone of its core recommendation algorithm that will work independently of its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, for 170 million users in the U.S. The move to split the source code is being done to appeal to U.S. lawmakers who signed a bill in April to either ban or force sale of the app in the U.S. Sources spoke to Reuters saying that this could lead to divesting of TikTok’s U.S. assets but there are no current plans yet. TikTok denied any truth to the report.
The plans to split the code were set in place before the bill was signed in April. For the past few months, TikTok engineers have been working on splitting millions of lines of code and going through the algorithm that relates users to the videos they like. Sources shared that this will take a year to finish. The task is so mammoth that TikTok had even considered open-sourcing the algorithm instead to counter allegations from the U.S.
OpenAI has stopped five attempts to misuse AI
OpenAI said it has disrupted five influence operations that wanted to use its AI models for “deceptive activity” online. Threat actors from Russia, China, Iran and Israel, used AI models to generate comments, long articles in multiple languages and make up fake names and bios on social media platforms over the past three months.
The networks were usually to mislead users around sensitive issues like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Gaza war, Indian elections and politics in the U.S. and Europe. OpenAI’s report is similar to another one released by Meta which shared it had detected campaigns on its platforms using GenAI to generate fake content.
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